


tomorrow will be dying.

by midwinter_day



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: First Time, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:29:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24106756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midwinter_day/pseuds/midwinter_day
Summary: two moments, in juxtaposition.
Relationships: John Bridgens/Harry Peglar
Comments: 6
Kudos: 45





	tomorrow will be dying.

_“He came out of nothingness, took form, was loved, was always bound to return to nothingness.”_

_─Lincoln in the Bardo_

_George Saunders_

John woke to the sound of a knock on his cabin door. A blast of cold air hit him as he slipped out from under his blankets, and he shivered but still sat up and turned on the lamp at his bedside. The cabin door slid back. 

“John,” Henry whispered. He took a step into the tiny berth. He looked sleep-rumpled with his hair a fright and his red jumper pulled hastily over his shirt. The fabric of the shirt bunched up around the collar and there were obvious lumps in arms where he had neglected to pull down his shirtsleeves. John had seen him in such a sleepy state before, years ago when they laid together in John’s old rented rooms in St. Giles. But then he had never appeared so harried. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

“No, no, it’s alright. I’m up now,” John smiled in the low light and Henry managed something of a half grimace in response before sliding the door closed behind him. “What’s happened?” 

“It was a dream,” Henry shook his head. “Just a bad dream. Silly of me to come to you…” 

“Do you want to speak of it?” 

Henry looked from John back out into the corridor. It would likely be quiet at this time of night. They lost so many men to the fire. John patted at the place beside him on the bed. “Come on, sit.”

***

John had not expected the kiss. He was an old man and knew the prickle of love as well as the rocking of a ship at sea. The first to steal his heart had done so when he was just a ship’s boy. He was familiar with the meaning of a lingering eye on a mouth or a hand on an arm, but he had doubted that Henry knew the same, or would allow himself to know it. Henry was handsome and sweet with a bit of the devil in his smile. He could easily find a pretty maid to sate his lust and his love, if he wished.

But Henry, dear Henry, was so self-willed by nature. John, a lifetime and three languages ago, would have called it bullheadedness. It was that very nature made John his tutor, made him a foretopman, made him literate.

(It made lines on his back. A story Henry would not tell unless in his cups.)

It made John Bridgens his lover. 

Henry had kissed him, unfamiliar but not unsure, and John kissed back with opposite character. Like the Bard’s verse, they came together. Hands removing clothing and skin finding warm skin. Henry’s back was scarred. John’s was weathered. 

And now, here they were, lying on this bed, their legs intertwined, bodies pressed close to each other, and Henry’s brown head pillowed against John’s shoulder. John could stay this way for eternity, slick and sweating in the London summer or huddled and stealing each other’s warmth in the frigid cold of winter. He traced his hand up Henry’s back, rough and lined, and he felt Henry’s head move against him. Half-lidded eyes, caught in the moonlight, looked up at him. 

“Did I wake you?” John asked.

Henry shook his head against John’s chest. The smile on his lips was small and affectionate, the sleepy careless kind. John adored Henry’s smiles. Each was like a piece of sea glass, luminous and unrepeated. John tried to save each in his mind like a collection on a shelf.

After the first time, Henry had dressed and vanished out the door in a blink. Left naked and still half-blissed, John had lamented, that like a spooked cat, he might never return again. That was another thing John had grown accustomed to in the liaisons of his youth. Some men feared their own feelings when they did not understand them. But He should have known Henry better by then. Henry feared hardly anything. He’d shown up the next day with a positively _wicked_ smile saying he was ready for another lesson.

John had taught him much and Henry was a fast learner. 

“Why are you awake?”

“Caught up in thought,” John moved his hand up to Henry’s hair and his eyes slipped closed again.

“About?”

“You,”

Henry’s sleepy smile grew, bemused. “Me?” 

Though he couldn’t see it, he imagined Henry had a blush across his cheeks.


End file.
